Monday, March 12, 2007

Squirrels, Squirrels Everywhere

If you live in Santa Monica California, you'll be interested in knowing your taxpayer dollars will be spent on injecting contraceptives into squirrels. Berkeley has already done it. Seems there is an overpopulation problem with the rodents and the old way of euthanasia methods angered the animal lovers.

And, speaking of squirrels, for once I am in agreement with Dennis Kucinich, the congressman from Ohio running for President. Again. He is in full tilt hissy fit over the Dems move to fore go debating in Nevada on a televised forum sponsored by Fox News and the Nevada Dem Party. Seems the camp of John Edwards succumbed to the demands of the Daily Kos website and MoveOn.org to ignore Fox News, under the pretext that Fox News is solely a Republican/conservative venue. It's crap, of course, but nothing new for dribble from these two intellectually challenged sites.

Seems the party who claims to be superior in the pursuit of human rights is all calm and happy as long as it is all going their way. Fox News, run by Roger Ailes, is kicking the ass of CNN in the ratings after ten years on the air and there is a reason for that. The majority of Americans continue to claim to be Democrats, so it cannot be that there are more Republican/conservatives in the country. Roger Ailes is a former political consultant for Republicans, true, but so are a considerable amount of reporters/commentators/newsroom bosses/heads of networks/, etc. They are everywhere, like it or not. The others are from liberal administrations or party platforms, though, so we are suppose to believe there is no bias there. Move along, nothing to see here.

On September 9, 2003 Fox News and the Congressional Black Caucus co-hosted a presidential debate in Baltimore. Brit Hume was the moderator, asking no questions. The three member panel of questioners were Juan Williams from NPR and Fox News, and two other black journalists/news personalities, all liberals. The Dems didn't have a problem with any of that. So, what changed?

The concept of fair and balanced had long gone missing when Fox News launched ten years ago. I was a CNN viewer as that was the only real 24 hour cable news outlet. When I moved to a place that offered Fox News, I tuned in and was pleasantly surprised. During the daytime programming, both sides of an argument are presented. They go out of their way to present both sides with the guests booked. This is not something CNN even pretends to do. In the evening, the programming switches to commentary and opinion shows. Even at that, Alan Colmes is liberal to Hannity's conservative commentary, and then Greta Van Sustern's show is on. So, they start with O'Reilly, a conservative leaning show, then go to conservative and liberal opinions with Hannity and Colmes, then to Greta for liberal thoughts. Sounds balanced to me. By contrast on CNN at night, it is all liberal shows. Paula Zahn, Larry King and then Cooper Anderson. No conservatives represented.

So, what's the big deal? I thought we were all for diversity. I thought we were all about the right of free speech. I thought we were all about the debate of ideas.

Remember when politics was all about ideas? As recently as 12 years ago, the 'Republican Revolution' was ushered into congress. Newt Gingrich, love him or hate him, was a big idea man. The voters were desperate for it and the majority was overwhelming. Then it spiralled down to the politics of personal destruction throughout the Clinton years. That's how the Clintons operate. Hillary, along with her pals Carville and Begala, had the idea of the War Room (you may have watched the documentary) and ran it full tilt. Still do. But to hear the libs speak, it's those mean-spirited Republicans who slime people. It's all about raw power grabs now and we can reflect back to see the clear path the current situation took. Still today Hillary is quoted as saying she will go for the throat of her opponents, she'll stomp them. She uses physical metaphors. And it's not just Republicans she's talking about...

Back in the day, people in Congress could argue all day, passionately, for their causes and legislation. Then they were able to socialize at night together. Political partisanship with social civility. No more.

Our loss.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh, yeah, we are all about diversity and freedom of speech...until the conservatives get a voice. Then the dems are calling for people's heads. Isn't it funny how they want to crucify someone for a politically incorrect utterance, yet let people like Bill Maher actually say that we'd have been better off if Cheney had died?

bluemountainmama said...

don't know why that just signed me in as big sis......wierd!

srp said...

Hilary's true colors are coming out. She is a witch, full of anger and hostility and I wouldn't doubt for one minute that her staff is afraid, and I mean really afraid of her. And the Dems talk about compassion.

Perhaps Bill looks so smiley and goofy and "on another planet grin" because he's been hit in the head a few times too many... by Hilary.